where I am

My emotions are 'right there.' I thought it was because I was all excited about Ryan coming home--and in my Eeyore-ness future trippin' about knowing he would go back in just a few short days. Then I thought it was also going to a funeral on Friday. Then I thought it was also not having seen Brett since summer and knowing he's not even on the same continent.

I know now that I'm still dealing with my boys leaving home. They're all grown up, off at college, and they'll never live here like they always used to. There's no going back. I know that's the way it's supposed to be and that we really wouldn't have it any other way, but my heart doesn't know that yet. Lord spoke tenderly to me in the car one day and caught me completely unaware, "You're grieving. You miss the life you loved, and you haven't gotten over it." Tears ambushed me as I immediately acknowledged the truth.

When I spoke the words out loud to a friend this morning, I choked up all over again. This is so awfully hard to let go of something I absolutely treasured and drank in every single day. I love being a mom. I loved having my babies around all the time. I loved the wonder of their birth, feeling them move inside me, the excitement and anticipation of a brand new life. I think somewhere along the way I thought of them too much as mine, and now the motherheart inside me can't grasp that it will never be like that again. No cherub faces to kiss all over, no sitting on my lap and just absorbing them, no cute sayings or malaprops, no bedtime stories and toddler giggles.

I know there's a whole lot of positive to this new stage of life and that there will be a new normal that I'll adjust to, but for now, this is what I'm dealing with. I'm acknowledging this latest incursion of the interior, the so very sad place in my heart that is mourning, and I'm profoundly grateful that I don't have to do it alone. Your nearness and ever-pouring-out love are my constant Companion and Hope. XO

the deeper beauty

Birdie: Love somebody from when you’re nineteen, one day he’s the same as ever, next day dead. So many tears they seem to wash something out of you. They leave this emptiness.

Odd: Loss is the hardest thing, but it’s also the teacher that’s the most difficult to ignore. Grief can destroy you or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone, or you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time--so much meaning it scared you so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn’t allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it’s over and you’re alone, you begin to see it wasn’t just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together, or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything. It was the why of life. Every event and precious moment of it.

The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, the sanctity of it, you can’t get off your knees for a long time. You’re driven to your knees, not by the weight of the loss, but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there. But one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it is to disrespect the gift of life.

[From the novel Odd Hours by Dean Koontz]


I hear those words "the love your shared sometimes so imperfectly." Tending to dwell on imperfections, the wrongness and lesser qualities of things, or otherwise occupying my mind with downer thoughts, I relate well to the so-imperfectly part. I must not stay there though! The deeper beauty of our time here, our connection with the souls He brings to us, and how to grow into the yielded, abiding life are goals worthy of my entire time and attention. I fall into the untruth that an hour here and there are just trinkets of time--there will be more. While I cannot realistically spend every second appreciating everything so as not to take life for granted, I can call on my "mind of Christ" for the awareness of moments in which to savor the righthererightnow, which essentially is respecting this gift of life. We who know and are known by the Most High God, of all people, can appreciate the profound, elemental relevance of this gift.

maria chapman

In memory of Maria Sue Chapman

We woke up to this news on the radio, and my whole family feels just sick. We almost lost Jylle this way four years ago, so to actually have it happen--what an unholy nightmare. I went to his website, and there were almost a thousand comments from people who wanted to offer some kind of support and encouragement. Words never feel so worthless and empty than at a time like this.

We're all praying fervently for them. Lord God, please cradle them tenderly in the palm of Your hand... †